Roulette
by kerlin
Summary: Pick a future. Any future.


Roulette

Rating: PG-13  
Summary: Pick a future. Any future.  
Pairing: Grissom/Sara  
Spoilers: None, really.  
A/N: Consider this the product of my own bizarre twist on the cross-fandom "Five Things" challenge and a week of internet deprivation and finals.  
Disclaimer: I will put them back relatively unscathed.

* * *

This time, she really will leave, and he won't stop her. She will run as fast and as far as she knows how, she, Sara Sidle, who never ran away from anything in her life. She will try to convince herself that she's really running to her future, but she's always been honest to a fault and lying, like any other art, takes practice.

She will purchase caller ID for the express purpose of ignoring his calls, and she will refuse to be devastated when she never has the opportunity. She will keep running, tracing her steps backward in her own past, first to San Francisco and then to Boston and there she will stay. She will know that it's a weakness, choosing to stay in the place she first met him, but she will not be able to work up the energy to care.

She will sleep even less in Boston, and work even harder, and she will be promoted quickly. On the nights the loneliness threatens to overtake her she will take to the streets, pounding the pavement with her feet and moving fast enough in the cold winter air that she can almost, almost convince herself that the tears are from the wind. But she still won't be a practiced enough liar to make it true.

She will begin to lecture at Harvard, and she won't know he's teaching the seminar until the last minute, when she's trapped in the room with no way of running away, and she will tell herself that the few bland words they exchange are professional and sensible. And then that night she will run faster and harder than she's ever run in her life, miles of screaming lungs and aching feet.

The next morning he will be gone without warning.

The next year she will be promoted to shift supervisor.

*

They will be working a stabbing murder when the skies will open up. He will be yelling for her to hurry, she will be photographing and collecting with numb fingers, and in the midst of it all, she will begin to laugh at the absurdity of it all. He will yell at her angrily but she will only laugh harder and work faster.

The three golden minutes will pass and all the evidence they weren't fast enough to bag will wash away, and he will snarl bitterly when they are both back in the car. She will still be laughing, edgily now, hiccuping and crying and very nearly to the point of hysterics. He will finally pull over and ask her what's so funny. She will be unable to answer, and he will reach over and shake her, hard.

It will be a mistake, because he will be touching her and she will wonder dimly that the heat doesn't steam dry their wet clothes, and that will be her last coherent thought before his lips meet hers, cold from the rain and then salty from her tears, and she will breathe him in as if she were drowning and he will drink her in as if he were dying of thirst.

She will finally stop laughing and they will ride the rest of the way back to the lab in silence.

And at the end of shift he will ask her in a voice full of more fear than she ever could have imagined if it is too late.

*

She will not cry at his funeral, but Catherine and Nick will. Warrick will grind his teeth so hard she will try to distract herself by calculating the pressure it would take on the human jaw to crack a tooth. She will find the answer in far too short a time and will return to the world just in time to hear the sheriff finish a politically correct, carefully emotionless eulogy on behalf of the citizens of Las Vegas.

She will look down at Lindsey, who will not understand what's going on, and she will wonder if she was ever that young.

Catherine will be promoted to supervisor and she will not have the heart to force Sara to take her days off. This time, when Ecklie catches Warrick gambling on CSI time, she will refuse to conduct the investigation and Warrick will be fired. Nick will look childishly lost as he watches her push the food around on her plate, and he will be near tears when she won't even take one bite.

HR will grow increasingly frustrated with Catherine for her inability to keep Sara out of work and Phillip Kane will post several concerned memos about the office grapevine discussion of Sara's increasingly reckless behavior and brittle appearance.

She will be working a routine B&E when the officer will excuse himself to go to the bathroom, and she will welcome the bullet when it shatters her skull.

*

The forensics seminar will be cancelled, and she will be mildly disappointed, but she will use the extra time to finish the next stage of the experiment she is running. She will finish her master's within the year, Harvard's golden child, and she will continue on through her doctoral and post-doctoral degrees with a blazing determination. She will publish, be offered a tenure-track position, and accept a ring from Ken Fuller all in the same month.

She will be on vacation with him in Las Vegas, celebrating her twenty-eighth birthday, when Ken will be killed by a car jacker. She will recognize the name Gil Grissom from the long-ago seminar brochure, and he will recognize the name Sara Sidle from last month's Scientific American article. He will include her in the investigation, and she will analyze the material that leads to an arrest.

She will return to Boston but within a month she will be back in Las Vegas, knocking on Gil Grissom's door and asking for a job. The scientific community will gossip for months when he gives her one, and Harvard will try in vain to entice her back. The New York Times will speak of the Nobel Prize in sad, wistful tones.

Late one morning, when she is curled in close to his side, he will whisper in her ear about fate, and she will shrug and smile against his skin.

*

He will knock loudly on her door in mid-afternoon and she will wake and try to forget the nightmare while making her way blearily to the door. His face will be the last one she expects to see outside her apartment, but she will let him in anyway.

His breath will smell more than slightly like liquor, but his fingers will be steady when he reaches up to run them through her hair. He will talk, but she will not understand a word he says and will coax him over to the couch, where he will collapse into sleep. She will snark aloud about his snores and will tuck a blanket around him with an exasperated sigh.

She will have to shake him to wake him in time for work, and he will grab her hand clumsily and tug her down beside him. She will be alarmed at first, but he will cling to her as if she were a lifeline and breathe deeply and finally describe the child's body in a halting, choking voice. She will stroke his cheek without the pretense of chalk, and promise him they will catch the bastard.

She will bring him the case-breaking evidence with a satisfied, gap-toothed grin, and he will brush his knuckles against the tips of her hair while his answering smile takes her breath away. They will leave together without the necessity of discussion, and they will eat breakfast together at his table with an easy familiarity.

His fingers tracing her curves will be so gentle they will bring Sara to tears, and he will kiss the dampness away from her cheeks and whisper his love in a wondering voice.

She will learn sign language when the surgery doesn't work, and he will hold her tightly when Pamela Adler finally dies. She will place their daughter in his trembling arms, and he will cry when he gives her away at the altar. 

She will plant orchids on his grave.

* * *

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